Zodiac Academy Fated Throne - Caroline Peckham Page 0,119

he could see any other way. It seemed like fate wasn't done fucking with us yet then.

"Fine," I muttered as Darius growled beneath his breath.

"Me and Gabriel will stay with her tonight," Darcy said softly, moving to wrap her arms around my neck and squeeze me tightly. "Thank you, Max."

I was so exhausted that I didn't even hug her back, not wanting to let any of the emotions I was trying to contain slip out of me. Because she didn't need to see the details of what her sister had been through at the hands of that tyrant. I didn't want it haunting her the way I knew it was going to haunt me.

Gabriel thanked me as he followed Darcy away down the hall but Darius didn't move, like he could already tell from my expression that he wasn't going to be welcome in that room.

He waited until Darcy and Gabriel were out of sight before flicking his fingers and casting a silencing bubble around us.

"Show me," he demanded and I sighed.

"You don't wanna see it, man. Hell, I don't wanna fucking see it and I'm not in love with the girl," I tried, though I could already see how determined he was to know the extent of it.

"It can't be any worse than what I'm already imagining," he growled and I swiped a hand down my face, shaking my head.

"Imagining it and living it aren't the same. I'm begging you to leave it. Trust me to help her through it, know that it's over now and just try to-"

"Show me," he commanded, grabbing my hand and lacing his voice with Coercion even though he knew I could shove off the impulse to comply if I wanted to. But I was fucking tired and I knew he wouldn't drop it, so I showed him what he wanted to see even though I knew this was going to hit him like a stab wound to the fucking heart.

I pushed my gifts at him and he dropped his mental barriers to allow me to show him the memories I'd lived out inside Tory's head. Darius's grip on my hand tightened and the rage and grief I felt from him hit me like a tidal wave as he watched what his father had done to her.

"How often did he do this?" he snarled, his grip unyielding so he was crushing the bones in my fingers, though I was fairly certain he hadn't even realised he was doing it.

"Not as often recently. It was almost all within the first six weeks," I muttered. "He stopped once she showed fear in response to every mention of you."

Darius kept hold of me for several long minutes, his magic keeping its grip on mine as he forced me to show him as much of what Tory had suffered through as he could manage before he dropped my hand and turned away from me with a stream of smoke billowing between his lips.

"Wait," I called after him, trying to push my gifts at him to help ease some of the pain he was feeling, even as the exhaustion from using them all day almost swallowed me whole.

Darius didn't reply, ripping off his shirt and leaping out of the window before I could say another word.

The haunting roar of a Dragon in distress rattled the entire treehouse a moment later as he took off towards the sky and I felt something shatter deep inside me as my own grief over all of this threatened to tear me apart.

I swallowed thickly, taking in the empty space around me before turning and heading for the door.

As much as I wanted to stay close to Tory tonight to help her, I knew that when I slept I was going to be broadcasting all of the horrors I'd just experienced for anyone nearby to feel. Not that I was convinced I'd be sleeping at all after living through all of that. It was the curse of my kind. We took emotions from others, but it was more than just an exchange of magic. We were left with the feelings of those we drained. Their pain and memories became our own if we took too much and we could be left carrying the hurts of a hundred Fae in our hearts if we weren't careful to feed on happiness more often than sorrow. But if you took too much happiness from another Fae then you left them in pain instead of yourself which wasn't